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Rohingya Militant Group Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA) Says 'No Option But To Fight' Against Burmese Army

January 08, 2018

The following report is now a complimentary offering from MEMRI's Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM). For JTTM subscription information, click here.

The Arakan Rohingya Salvation Army (ARSA), an Islamic militant group fighting for Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar (previously known as Burma), has issued a statement saying it has "no option" but to keep fighting against the Burmese Army.

Using its Twitter account, ARSA issued a two-page statement (see the images below) to the press, which says: "We declare, loud and clear, that we will continue our legitimate struggles in hand in hand cooperation with the civilised international community until all our demands are fulfilled." In the statement, ARSA also claimed to have carried out an attack against the Burmese army at Turaing village in the state of Arakan on January 5, 2018.

The militant group said: "Although Aung San Su Kyi blatantly lied to the international community that the [security] clearance operations in northern Arakan had stopped since 05 September 2017, the Burmese terrorist government and the Burmese terrorist army have never stopped committing acts of terrorism, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity against innocent Rohingya indigenous native ethnic community of Arakan State."

Rohingyas, mostly Muslims, are Bengali-speaking people who migrated to the state of Arakan in Burma from India a few centuries ago when the two countries were ruled by the British. Last year, around 700,000 Rohingya Muslim refugees arrived in Bangladesh and thousands of others migrated to Indonesia, Malaysia, and India, among other countries, due to oppression in Arakan.

The ARSA statement noted: "The Burmese terrorist government is further blocking and delaying all kinds of international organisations (including UN, IFFM, EU, etc.), NGOs and medias from entering into Arakan State with the ill-intention in order not to [allow them] to witness the actual situation on the ground." It warned: "At this juncture, ARSA has [been] left with no option but to combat 'Burmese state-sponsored terrorism.'"

Given below are screenshots of the full press statement issued by ARSA:

Source: Twitter.com/ARSA_Official, January 6, 2017.

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